Diem Ex Dei
by Finnimbrun
Summary: The road to hell, as they say, is paved with the very best intentions. Pein/Konan.
1. Diem Ex Dei

**Title:** _Diem Ex Dei _(Part 1)  
**Genre:** General, Tragedy, Romance (?)  
**Characters:** Pein (Nagato), Yahiko, Konan, Madara (Pein/Konan)  
**Rating:** PG-13 (T)  
**Warnings:** Violence/tragedy. Um, maybe very very vague sexuality (in the second part).  
**Summary:** _. . . but Konan knows, and Nagato knows, that this is life, and life is pain, and life will always be pain, and there is no point in believing it can ever be otherwise. The most they can achieve is to temper their misery. And they do. They tolerate it, wear it as only those whose lives have been defined by loss can: with silence, with resignation, without complaints. And so it would have been for the remainder of their days, had Uchiha Madara not come to them during the course of the next evening._

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto. Much of this is very, very strictly from my imagination.

* * *

It is like this:

He is smiling. His eyes – eyes like she has never seen before or since, and will never see again – are glinting; she has pushed his black hair back, tucked the stray strands behind his ears.

There is sunshine behind him. Their friend is laughing, nearby; rough, boy's laughter. It is that rare time of year when the dry season comes to Rain Country, when the storms go south to visit the desert.

She smiles a little, and chews her lip. He looks nice, she thinks. Awkward and shy; his sleeves are a little too long, and his hair still hangs in that way that tends to make him look even smaller, more distant, but there is something healthy about the world today. She can see it in his eyes. His face has colour, and birds are singing in the sky.

For a few weeks, the land is green and pure. They walk together, all three of them, but she and he – when Yahiko is not looking, curl their smallest fingers together, and grace each other with secret looks, and both are unsure of what they are implying, but they are willing to assume it is nothing but play.

They share a language of smiles and laughs, theirs alone.

The air is fresh. The world is newly born. They have been trained now. They will be all right. The children walk and breathe in the air and forget the hunger which has tormented them.

The sky is so bright. When she looks up, white butterflies have risen.

(From what land did they come, those butterflies?)

She opens her mouth, but does not speak, and finally – with the kind of jerky movement which suggests he has been planning this all along and has just now worked up the courage to act on his desire – he grabs her hand.

Their eyes meet. On days like this, they can allow themselves these cautious hopes.

And, without words, they tell one another of their dreams for the future – for _a_ future.

* * *

This is what Konan remembers.

She folds another crease.

No, she supposes. Her mind is embellishing.

The butterflies, at least, must be a fabrication. Time is tricking her.

* * *

It is like this:

The sky is grey. The rains have begun to emerge again.

They stumble into Amegakure, prepared to sell themselves as shinobi. The city is so vast and powerful; it should frighten them, but it does not. They have what they have been taught, and they have one another. In their minds, there is little that can touch them.

Here is where her memory begins to blur around the edges.

There were dogs. She remembers the dogs. Barking in the distance, as Yahiko declares his intention to steal food for them.

"But we're here now," she says. "We don't have to do that anymore, Yahiko. Let's just wait, okay? We don't want to get ourselves in trouble."

She looks back at Nagato, expecting him to agree. He nods. His hair has fallen over his face again, and he again looks timid and unhappy, like a soaked puppy.

Yahiko looks between them both.

For just a moment, a change overtakes his features – the expression of someone who has swallowed something foul. Then, it is gone, leaving Konan bewildered.

He knows. And she knows he knows. That is not surprising; it was never a secret, really, but what she never could have anticipated is what she sees in his reaction.

_I never knew you -_

She is sorry.

Yahiko shrugs and laughs. "Sissies. We're not going to get any money _tonight_. You guys want to starve, or what?"

He turns.

Suddenly, Nagato speaks up.

"Wait, Yahiko! Let me go with you. I'll - "

Yahiko shakes his head fiercely. "Back _off,_ Nagato," he says, with a sternness which surprises Konan. "I don't need your help. I can take care of myself!"

Nagato does not move. Although his power is the greatest among them, he is docile; his will is not as strong as his friend's. Softly, he says, "Yahiko . . . I really think you should let me come along. I just want to protect you."

Yahiko's grin is full of sadness.

"I know, and that's the problem! I don't _need_ your protection, Nagato. Didn't you tell me Jiraiya-sensei talked to you about growing up?"

Nagato looks down.

"Yes."

"Yeah, well, how can I ever grow up with you always acting like this? I can't be an adult until I learn to fend for myself, Nagato, so thanks, but no thanks. You and Konan stay here. Take care of _her_, all right? Don't worry about me. I'll be right back."

Konan watches Nagato carefully. She can see from his body language that he wants to protest, wants to insist that his friend not depart from their presence, but as usual, his will bends – and this time, perhaps guilt has a hand in it, though Konan does not know for sure – never knows, even to this day.

Whatever the reason, Nagato's shoulders slump.

He acquiesces.

Yahiko winks and runs off, leaving Nagato and Konan to sit and wait.

* * *

"Konan," Nagato says.

She regards him.

"Do you think we – do you guess we made him feel like - "

"I don't know."

"Mm . . ."

She looks down, makes another flower. This one is crooked, and not very pretty. Hastily constructed.

She's embarrassed by it, but when she hands it to Nagato, he takes it, all the same, and lies, and tells her it is beautiful.

* * *

An hour must have passed, and Yahiko has not returned. The first stirrings of sunset are appearing.

"I should've never let him go alone," Nagato declares. His fists are balled. Konan can hear his frustration with himself. "I think we should go find him, Konan."

He looks back at her.

"I'll protect you," he assures.

_I'm not worried about myself, Nagato_, she almost blurts.

She is shivering now; her clothes are thin and her skirt leaves parts of her legs exposed. She bends a little, tugging it downwards, but it is not sufficient.

They scurry down the alleys, him ahead. Konan trips and scrapes her knees. Her hair blows around her face. The rain falls, steady now, splashing her nose.

The sky is blackening.

* * *

What comes next is hard to call forth from the confines of memory, eclipsed as it is by the trauma that follows.

Dogs are barking, and the wind is growing loud. It growls about them.

They have run down the main streets now, not caring who might scowl upon them in this condition.

The following movements are a jumble, and Konan is an origami piece folded, folded, folded; she remembers a crash, a clanging, and Nagato calling for her, and suddenly the streets are filled with men, and weapons, and screams, but the screams are muted by the dogs and the wind and the orders being shouted, and the dogs and the wind, and the dogs and the wind.

Beneath the endless rain.

* * *

Konan hears her voice. It is an echo of itself, groggy and muddled; the syllables are heavy on her tongue, dragging their way out with difficulty.

Otherwise, it is silent. She realizes this, and jumps.

A hand fists her hair and yanks backwards.

"Nagato!" The word on her lips.

She hears a laugh. It is not Nagato's.

It is a man's laugh, like sandpaper.

Gradually, Konan becomes aware of her body, of the ache spreading through it; one pool of ache concentrates in her temple, where she has been struck. She thinks she feels herself wince.

The world is still solidifying, emerging from the shadows.

"Let them go!"

That is Nagato.

Konan jerks to attention. A thick arm is around her waist, and the rain is pouring into her open mouth.

She knows, in an instant, that they have not escaped war. War has found them.

"Konan?" she hears, in a frightened tone, and she turns as much as she can, and there is Yahiko, bound, ropes burning his wrists, turning them red.

Her own are in a similar condition. She can feel it.

She never forgets the look on his face in that moment, even after all that follows.

Nagato is standing there, before them, and he's shaking.

"Let them go!" he calls, again. His voice breaks.

Konan feels the ground scratch her bare feet as she's jerked backwards.

One foot slips. It takes a moment to register that there is nothing beneath it.

It takes a moment more to realize that she is on a ledge, on a building, beaten and bruised, still waking up, in the arms of her captor, and half of her body is being dangled over the edge.

In the fog of her mind, it occurs to her, far away, that she should be afraid of her impending death, but she sees only Nagato shaking, and Yahiko's face.

Nagato rushes forward.

Suddenly, Konan feels stone under her feet once more.

He stands back. She knows he fears that a sudden movement will result in her being thrown to her death.

Nagato is powerful; he is _very_ powerful. He learned every jutsu that Jiraiya-sensei taught them. But Konan sees in his eyes that he doubts himself, that he worries he has no hand motions fast enough and no jutsu strong enough to prevent this.

"So this little thief is with you guys," one man says, the words given in Nagato's direction, and then he looks to his companion, and he pulls Yahiko up. Yahiko's defiant expression does not falter, save for his eyes, which briefly flicker with fear, uncertainty.

Something inside of Konan twists at the sight.

_If she can just touch her fingers to one another; her wrists are tied together, so it shouldn't be hard, but they won't reach, they won't reach, they won't reach -_

Shinobi in war have no amusement in their lives, and their humour is the humour of the grave; the joy of the corrupted – the wretched – comes only from the misfortunes of others. They are their toys now, Konan knows. Their amusement.

"What'll you give us for them, huh?"

"I – I'll let you live. That's what I'll give you. If you hurt them, I – I'll kill you. I will . . . "

Nagato's words are undermined by the tremors wracking his body.

Yahiko, by contrast, is still, and quiet, grimacing. Tough little boy.

(Like he always thought he was supposed to be.)

"Heh," he says, looking up at the one who grips him. "I'll never give up! I'm not a baby, and you don't scare me! Nagato and I, we'll - "

The fist collides with his cheek. Konan thinks she hears a crack.

This is the first time that she remembers to scream.

In front of her, Nagato takes the opportunity to begin forming hand signs.

One man leans close to the other, whispers something quickly; _do they take him seriously?_ - Konan wonders, and then she hears:

"Here, kid. Think fast."

and

"Pick one."

-their terrible grins, and the suffocating noise of the storm-

She is released. A push on her back, and she sees Yahiko beside her.

The world shifts. Directions mean nothing.

And they are falling.

Nagato never finishes his jutsu.

* * *

Before she dies, Konan thinks she is glad that she did not see him in that final moment.

She closes her eyes.

And dies.

* * *

A hand clasps her forearm.

_I never touched the ground_, she realizes, and thinks she is not dead.

Nagato is holding her.

He has made it in time to save her.

But.

Yahiko.

Her lips form the word.

"Don't look down, Konan," Nagato whispers. "Don't look down."

He is looking down. He never stops looking down. Down, down, down.

Their angle allows his tears to fall onto her face, like warm rain.

* * *

He could have escaped, could have fought back, were it not for her. He could have saved Yahiko, were it not for her.

The evening replays in her dreams, countless times.

Nagato is pulling her up, drawing her into his arms. They are both stunned. They are both doomed.

He closes his eyes - _rinnegan, what have they ever done for him?_ - and the kicks begin, thundering through him, reverberating, and she feels every blow, but Nagato is soundless, resigned, and finally, finally, Konan is sobbing, breaking apart, because Yahiko is dead, Yahiko is really and truly dead, and now Nagato is going to die all around her, and Yahiko could have lived if she were not there, and Nagato could have lived if she were not there, but she is there, and he is going to be beaten to death even as he cradles and protects her, and she sobs, uselessly, and begs him to abandon her.

_Please, please, please, Nagato. Let me go. You need your hands for your jutsu. Please, Nagato, run. Please. Please. Oh, God, Nagato._

If anything, his grip on her tightens.

"No matter what kind of pain I have to go through," she hears him breathe.

The pain goes through him, into her.

The agony is in the slowness, the terrible slowness that lets her feel each blow, lets her know he is inching closer, closer, closer, and she is in his arms, cannot move, and she will be forced to feel his last breaths, and the waiting is worse than the deaths, worse than anything that has come before.

She wants to shove him off, fight them herself so he can get away, but they are outnumbered, cornered, trapped, and suddenly, he is torn off her; her clothes are torn, her skin is scratched, her nails break on the ground as she is dragged backwards. There is laughter above the storm.

Konan tries to pull herself up, tries to stand. Ropes begin to tear against the concrete.

She manages, at last, to touch her fingers together. On instinct, they work in harmony, producing the series of steps that will lead to a jutsu.

Paper slices through the remaining rope fibers binding her wrists.

She is free.

The skin of her fingers chafes. She hears her ragged, panting breaths, and then she sees Nagato – sees, in one clear instant, the first blade slide into him, through him.

Konan turns, and flails, and kicks, no longer caring what happens to her, because she has nothing left to lose but her life.

Origami shuriken fly. Blood droplets strike her face.

She'll kill them. She'll kill every one she can. She knows.

The rain is pouring, blurring the faces of those who have abducted them; they are shinobi of Amegakure, having sold their souls to the war, and Konan knows, sickeningly, that this will be the most fun they will have all month.

She sees the hilt of the sword coming at her.

Then, she sees nothing at all.

* * *

_"Someday," Nagato begins, "when we grow up, you know . . . we'll get married."_

_Konan giggles. "Aren't you thinking a little too far into the future?"_

_He blushes. The moon is bright, showing a dark, heavy blush, and he gnaws his lip and messes with the hem of his tunic._

_"You're such a good person," she says; this time, she is very serious._

_"Well, so are you. You and Yahiko are the only good things that have come out of this war. I don't know what I'd do without you."_

_"I think I'd die if I didn't have you guys."_

_She is still serious._

_"Don't say that. Let's not talk about that kind of thing, Konan."_

_She leans close, at once. Crosses the distance between them. Her hands hold the step they are sitting on, gripping it tightly, and her lips almost brush his skin._

_Nagato pulls back._

_"Not yet." He grins mischievously. "It's not time yet. We have to wait until the moment is perfect."_

_She blinks. "When will that be?"_

_Nagato looks like he is thinking hard._

_"Hmm. I'm not sure. But I think we'll know."_

_He shifts a little, fidgets._

_"Maybe," he starts, finally, "when the war is over, and when the rain ends, but for good."_

* * *

"I think she's - "

A voice, connected to nothing.

"Hyori!" Quicker. More urgent.

_My name is not Hyori_, she thinks she says, but maybe she only imagines that she says it, because the voice does not respond.

"Hyori, I think she's waking up. Come here, quickly!"

Konan groans and begins to sit up. A hand touches her shoulder, gently tries to ease her back down. She understands, once again, that she is alive, and she understands, once again, that she should not be.

"Water," she chokes out.

"Don't move too fast, child," the voice - soothing, soft and male - says. "You don't want to upset your injuries. Here."

Konan feels a warm substance that she knows to be blood; it trickles down her forehead, dips over her eyelid, and catches in her lashes. She cannot contain her moans as the pain makes itself known, creeping forth from the corners of her consciousness and filling her body. Her limbs feel heavy, swollen. They drag. Her head is throbbing. Feels like the pain is trying to burst out of her body, through her cranium, through her skin.

Another body enters the room. Konan hears its soft footfalls, smells them (like lye soap, clean but not perfumed; simple), feels its full, warm nearness.

Her hands grip the sheets.

A glass is pressed to her lips. She can taste its coolness.

"Drink," she is told.

And she does.

When the glass is empty, drawn back, Konan fists the sheets harder, and utters the name that no amount of water can prevent from burning her throat dry: "Nagato."

"That must be the other one."

The words are spoken from one of the strangers to the other, but Konan catches them. Her eyes widen.

"This is a house of healing," says the male stranger. "I am Suwayamaru, and this is Hyori."

He indicates the female.

"We are medic-nins," she adds, "but poor ones. We don't have many fancy supplies here. We set this place up as a charity, to give relief from the war."

_War can never be escaped._

Konan inhales. Her tired eyes survey the room. Sparsely furnished. Hers is the only bed. One night-stand, no furniture besides. Now that her senses are awake and alert, she is aware of the rain beating against the walls and the rafters. Through it, around it, like another music threading through the first, she hears the rumbling moans of the sick, the aching, the dying and the barely-living.

She wants to ask about Nagato. She does not do so, cannot do so. She fears the answer, and knows what it will be.

Still dazed, Konan rubs her broken lips together, bites them, looks downward into her lap, and that is when she shivers, when the tears begin anew. She is one mass of shivers, alone with the injured and the ill, in this dark place, in the shadow of the rain. Her hair clings to her face and irritates her eyes, until its tips are wet, also.

_I am dead_, she thinks.

Her parents, her friends, Jiraiya-sensei, Yahiko.

Nagato.

Nothing remains.

Hyori's hand comes down on her shoulder.

"Your friend is alive."

These are words Konan could never have anticipated. They shatter her reverie – shatter her tears, shatter _everything_.

"Take me to him."

It is not lost on her that the woman's face says that Nagato is dead, no matter that her words contradict the sentiment.

"You are still healing, girl," Suwayamaru says. "You ought to stay in bed for now."

"Take me to him," Konan repeats. _"Please."_

Sore as she is, she stumbles out of bed and crashes against the ground. Konan lifts herself onto her hands and knees; her head still screams like there's a spike of metal behind her eyelids, jamming itself into her bones. A more muted pain is budding in her ribs, and she thinks one is broken, if not more, but it does not matter; none of it matters. This pales before what Nagato must be enduring.

What Yahiko has endured.

"All right." The medic-nin named Hyori helps Konan to her feet. "I will take you to him, if it should give you comfort. But, girl, you should know that he is . . . he is not in good shape."

Konan has already figured this out.

She is quaking inside, terrified of what will be left of Nagato when she sees him again.

But whatever it is, he is alive; Konan has already been told that he is alive, and that is more than is true of – no, she will not think of _him_; still too raw. Konan must overcome her fear, must be near Nagato no matter what, because he needs her support, because no matter the condition of his body, he is Nagato, who protected her – who tried to protect _them_ - through his pain.

The future lies down a lightless hallway, but the present is even worse; lonely, with the ghosts and the rain.

So Konan goes to him.

On bare feet, robes sweeping her thin legs. She sways; her toes catch, and she would trip, were it not for Hyori helping her. Konan's arms wrap around her chest and sides as she tries to ignore her wounds; the pain is all about her now, fluttering, like it has settled, seeped in. Like it belongs.

She feels dizzy and light; her graceless motions feel graceful, as if she is a spirit; an angel.

No. Konan is only a girl, making her way across the dusty floor, down a path that feels like it will not end in hope. Her vision is still so spotty that she can barely see ten paces before her.

Half-delirious, she is abruptly halted; hears a key turn in a lock beside her, and then she is pulled, gently, into a room.

Konan notices the smell, first and foremost. It is the odor of heavy medicine and cleaning solutions, trying and failing to mask the stench of blood and decay.

The smell is worse, somehow, than the sight.

The room is bare, except for one night-stand, and beside it, one bed covered with thin white sheets. Under the sheets is the outline of a form – a swell, a human body, unmoving.

Konan can still hear the rain.

Without hesitation (though she hears a voice behind her, speaking up, halted and unsure, and she knows the medic-nins wish to warn her once more), she goes to the side of the bed, to Nagato's side, where she belongs.

Where she has always belonged.

Closer now, she can see that the sheets are stained dark. Nagato is heavily bandaged. Even his face is covered, and perhaps this is the one kindness fate has given her, because Konan is not certain she could stand to see the pain she knows is written upon his features.

"They . . . I am sorry," Suwayamaru says, "but I will not lie to you about the severity of this. He was run through with a blade, but that did not pierce any internal organs. However, that is only the beginning."

Konan closes her eyes.

"Your friend. They held him down, and set fire to him. We think we got to him quickly, but even so, with the amount of tissue damage he has sustained, it is a miracle that he is still breathing."

"He may not last the night," Hyori interjects. "It will be very surprising if he makes it through the next few days, and even if he does, there is only so much we can do for him. He will never be able to live a normal life, and should he survive, he will always need someone to care for him."

The next words – Konan cannot remember, later, which of them speaks, or if they both do, as everything has become surreal - _"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

She does not answer.

She has no words.

So she kneels before the bed, and presses the side of her face to the empty space beside Nagato, and rests, eyes open, like this. Nagato does not stir; does not open his eyes. Konan breathes in.

She is waiting for him.

She will always wait.

* * *

Over the next few days, nourished by bread and water and slices of fruit, Konan's body recovers from the assault. Days and nights blend together, tapering into a somber rhythm that has no sense of time, no sense of place, only the feeling of being in motion or lying still. She dreams rarely, and each time, she sees Yahiko; hears Nagato telling her not to look down, sees Nagato's stricken face, imagines Yahiko's body.

She wonders, in the earliest hours of the morning, when the dawn light is heavy about the earth: what must it have felt like, to have knowingly made the choice to save one friend and not the other? What must it have felt like, to look down, to see your friend die – to know that they died because you did not choose to save them, to know that this was Yahiko's final vision in this world?

There had only been time to save one of them. She had been closest.

The guilt that she is alive and Yahiko is not – that she lives because Yahiko has died – is an ache Konan knows she will never recover from.

And yet, compared to the hell Nagato must be in, it is nothing.

She visits him, constantly, but she does not think he knows her.

Nagato knows nothing but pain.

She helps, carefully – so carefully – to clean him and replace his bandages. He is still raw. His skin is no longer smooth and pale; it is burnt an angry red, blistered, and pieces of it have sloughed off, revealing tender layers that can do nothing but hurt. What is left of his black hair eventually falls away.

Konan wishes she could hold him, but to touch him would only cause greater suffering.

So she sits near, and waits, and watches, and speaks to him, and sings to him, and tries to comfort him; the boy who has suffered for her.

One day, Nagato sits up, suddenly, and Konan rushes to his side.

His eyes open, his lids having somehow remained intact.

"Yahiko," he says, the syllables little more than puffs of air.

Konan shakes her head.

It is true that they found Nagato quickly, or else he would be dead. The burn is worst in his lungs, in his throat. She can hear the havoc that the flames and smoke have wreaked upon his insides. His voice is raspy, wheezing; he struggles around the word.

And when Konan shakes her head, Nagato grows still.

The medic-nins attempt to compensate for his loss of fluids. Once he has woken, he remains awake. Nagato sits up, and will not cease sitting up, even when he is encouraged to lie back down.

He does not speak again.

If Nagato would cry, or scream, or indicate _life_ through sound, it might have been less frightening, Konan thinks.

He does not.

He stares out the window, into the grey and silver twilight curtained by rain and cut by red sunset.

Konan no longer tries to talk to him. She knows he will talk first, when he is ready.

If he can ever be ready again.

She sits at his bedside, folding flowers and birds and trifles, and Nagato looks down at his hands, where the rotten skin peels about the fingernails.

Quietly, they pass the time. Quietly, time passes them.

Orphans, they wait, without hope, in an infinite universe of pain.

* * *

After their lives have ended. Before their afterlives have begun. This is the interlude.

In the world of ninja, the human machine creates and is re-created. The space of one battle may see to it that a shinobi's life ends, or is altered forever. So it is that Konan and Yahiko and Nagato become Konan and Nagato; so it is that, in less than an hour (though it feels more akin to a small eternity), the children's lives are once again ruined; their hopes are left behind, washed away in the flood, dropped far, far below, with Yahiko, in that place and that time and that incident which Konan can never entirely envision. It is a dream.

But not to Nagato, who saw everything, who remained awake through the pain.

Konan suspects that, for him, what comes after is the dream.

The rinnegan eye, as she understands it, allows for an enhanced acuity of vision.

So he must have seen every detail.

She does not think he will forget a single one.

Konan never asks. Nagato never volunteers his memories.

Like a season changed, Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko become Konan and Nagato. Nagato loses his beauty and power; trapped now in a withering body, and no one knows to what extent he can recover, but Konan knows, and Nagato knows, that this is life, and life is pain, and life will always be pain, and there is no point in believing it can ever be otherwise. The most they can achieve is to temper their misery. And they do. They tolerate it, wear it as only those whose lives have been defined by loss can: with silence, with resignation, without complaints.

And so it would have been for the remainder of their days, had Uchiha Madara not come to them during the course of the next evening.

* * *

"I'm amazed," says the stranger in the doorway.

Konan turns, slightly.

"That he is still breathing is surprising enough in its own right. That he's conscious and sitting up is nothing short of spectacular."

_You don't know anything_, Konan thinks, without malice – because he does not.

Throughout the week or so that she has been there, Nagato's organs have begun to fail; after his initial peak, in which his eyes opened, his health has plummeted.

More tubes have been added to his body, such that they run through his nose, down his throat, pumping nutrients. They pierce the veins in his arms and filter the waste from his kidneys. And still, Nagato will not move, will not speak, will not look in Konan's direction – or anyone else's.

Filled with medication, monitored hourly, and given medical jutsu, Nagato is a conscious corpse. His bloodshot rinnegan eyes stare, ever and always, out the window.

Though he looks for all the world as though he is awake and present, Konan knows he is neither.

"Although," the stranger continues, "I suppose I should have expected no less from the destined child."

This catches Konan's notice, and she turns fully, giving the man the whole of her attention.

He is dressed all in black, with a black cowl, and a hint of black hair peeking out.

What strikes her the most, however, are his eyes.

They are powerful, those eyes. Commanding eyes. Menacing, and ruthless. Konan knows war. Eyes like that come before the war, and create war.

"You are not going to ask who I am?"

"You will tell me, if you want me to know," she answers, without hesitation. "I am more concerned to know what you are here for."

"A smart and bold girl, she is." He pulls up an empty chair and sits beside her, folding his arms at his chest. "The answer will surprise you. I am here to find god."

_God has abandoned these lands_, Konan almost says, or, _I don't pray anymore_. _I don't believe in any god._ Instead, she says, "I don't know what you're talking about. This is a house of healing, not a place of worship."

"Are there places of worship left around here, I wonder? Does this land still have need for gods?"

Konan does not answer.

A gleam lights the man's eyes.

"You said I would tell you who I am, should I want you to know. I will tell you. I am one who makes gods."

"This has nothing to do with me," Konan replies. She is too tired to be having this discussion. Whether he is mad, a liar, or telling the truth, she is not interested in matters which do not concern her. All her time is given to tending Nagato; she scarcely has time enough for matters which _do_ concern her, let alone this.

"It has something to do with you, and everything to do with that boy."

"You're here for Nagato." It is not a question.

The stranger places his hands on his knees. "There is a story," he begins, "of the rinnegan. Do you know of it?"

"Yes. It is a very powerful eye technique."

Jiraiya-sensei had told them that.

"It is, but that's only the start. I suppose," and his eyes begin to narrow, now, "that your sensei neglected to mention that there are legends and prophecies concerning the rinnegan. It belonged to Rokudou Sennin, the Sage of the Six Paths, and these six paths are the key to your friend's revival."

At this, Konan feels her heart skip faster.

So the stranger – Madara – stands, and informs her of his name, and tells her what Jiraiya has not. The next one who appears with the rinnegan is the object of a prophecy; he will bring peace to the world, or grind it into dust.

"The destined child," Madara says, "and he's lying there before you, being fed through tubes. But what would you say – what would you _do_ - if I told you that I could give him new bodies, a new identity? What would your response be, if I insisted that I can make this boy into the god he was intended to be?"

Konan grips the wood of the chair and holds it tightly.

She cannot be sure if he is telling the truth; he has given no proof, no sign that he is all that he says, but his eyes insist that he is, and such eyes cannot hide their power.

Her life has taught her that nothing comes without a price. Often, that price is beyond what she believes herself capable of tolerating. She considers this briefly, weighing it in her mind, but Konan dismisses this misgiving quickly, for she has already lost everything, and what would she not give to have Nagato's comfort? He cared for her, shielding her at the expense of his own pain.

"Anything," she says. Her mouth is dry. "I will do anything you wish, if you can free Nagato from his pain."

There is no hesitation in her sentiments. No doubt.

When Madara smiles, it is not like a smile at all. This is what Konan thinks as she watches his lips curve. It is like a blade, like a sneer, like something unhappy that writhes beneath the skin, and the skin obeys a command to smile, unwillingly, but there is no joy in his eyes.

After all that she has seen and endured, Konan still must resist the temptation to shudder.

"Smile, girl. This sad face does not suit you."

She watches, weary and wary, as he approaches Nagato's bed.

"You children think you have died? Well, then. Today, you shall be revived as an angel, and he shall be a god."

The smile widens, and Konan feels as though it slices her like paper.

"What god," Madara says, "does not grow more powerful from death and resurrection?"

* * *

There are six paths of pain. More precisely – and Uchiha Madara is nothing if not precise – this is a jutsu which splits the soul six ways, fitting it into six bodies. There are religions which argue that God is three into one; or one into three, or both, simultaneously. Now, Nagato, orphan with the rinnegan, is to become one into six, and six into one.

Six bodies, and Madara is true to his word as he provides them, and Konan does not ask where he gets them from, but one, the final one, gives her pause.

And it gives Nagato pause.

"He would wish it," Madara insists.

It is impossible to say what state of awareness Nagato inhabits.

Madara talks with him, often, while Konan sits patiently and folds her hands in her lap, watching, trying to discern whether Nagato's mouth moves, and whether words emerge from it, or only broken noises.

His voice is gravelly from the tube that cuts him. His eyes are vague, revealing nothing.

But he must be capable of understanding, at times, because there are moments when his eyes become keen and bright, alert, and now, to words Konan cannot hear, Nagato nods.

"Even fallen, and dead this short time, your friend's body will be easy enough to repair. Easier than yours, because he did not fall far enough to break him into pieces. His spine is what snapped."

Candlelight flickers, folding the shadows on Nagato's bandages, as Konan folds paper, folds her dirty skirts.

They go along with this, because they have nothing left to lose, only their lives.

In the wooden room, amid the moans and cries of those who are suffering, carried through open windows by the night wind, in the middle of this great war, Uchiha Madara aligns the bodies (and no one stops him, no one cares; he has walked right into this place, and none have questioned him, because there is a war, and people are busy, too busy to care), and presses his fingers together.

It looks more like some forlorn, unholy ritual than any jutsu.

But it is a jutsu.

Konan looks at Nagato. Nagato looks at Konan. And Konan's heart thunders, because Nagato is not just looking in her direction. He is looking at her. _Looking at her._

They see one another in this final instant.

* * *

They thought they had nothing left to lose.

They had forgotten – or not considered – their souls.

For to children such as they, what were souls but promised aether, intended to rise to a place they had no faith in?

A soul, by definition and irony, is something you only understand and know in its absence.

Even then, you go a while without certainty; the eyes and the body grow restless and tired, the mind wanders, and desires, joy, are lost, and there comes a day when you see a mirror, and do not know anything behind the face it contains, and you hold a precious object, yet regard it as dead weight in your hands, and there is no sentimentality.

Or you watch a precious person, one you think you have loved all your days, and know you love him, because memory tells you that you have loved him, and in all your memories, and brain, there is the knowledge that you have loved him, should love him, and love him.

And yet you hear your mind telling you this more than you feel it, and you wonder what is left of that man, that love, and yourself. Life becomes a series of whispers by that voice, telling you what you feel.

This is when you realize, finally, what you have lost.

This is when Konan realizes, finally, what she has lost.

* * *

Six bodies. Six kinds of pain. Yahiko's, Konan knows.

Madara informs them that Nagato's soul will be dominant, but for this jutsu to work, Nagato's original form must remain alive. He cannot say if the other souls will be present at all, " - but he will absorb their pain. The pain of each body. He will not be merely Nagato, but something more."

Nagato, and pain. But to Konan, she cannot doubt, he will still be Nagato.

The worst comes when the jutsu finishes, when Madara's hands are still.

Konan leans forward. Madara grabs her shoulder and pulls her back.

"Watch," he says, looking down at her expectant face.

That is when Nagato screams.

Madara's nails dig into Konan's skin as she tries to lunge forward, tries to break away.

"Patience." His voice contains traces of disdain, irritation, and amusement.

Nagato tears at himself suddenly, tears at the tubes, and the boy who has been quiet, so deathly quiet through all that has come before, is now screaming, his eyes wet with tears _- no, you shouldn't cry; don't cry, Nagato, because you still have to save your fluids -_ and then, then. Then.

His body crashes onto the floor.

The sound makes Konan feel sick.

Konan turns on Madara, furious, wanting to hit, wanting to hurt, because he promised; _he promised_, but, "Patience," he says again. "It's not over, Konan. Look."

She does.

Nagato's body is not moving. It is like there, like a wrapped cadaver.

"He's not - "

And then she sees.

While Nagato lies flat upon his stomach, another body moves.

It -

Her fingers tremble, but reach forward, as if to touch.

_"Yahiko?"_

But it is not. It is not. She knows it is not, but she cannot stop herself, cannot help but ask.

Arms stretch, and Konan knows it's coming, knows what is in store, has been told in great detail, but her eyes are still wide, and still, by the light of candles, in the tiny, suffocating room where no one cares _(no one cares)_, Yahiko's body – repaired now, whole, and smooth – looks up, looks at her. Looks at her. And.

And she sees concentric circles.

The look in his eyes is the one he wore on the day he went mad.

"Konan." When he speaks, it is with Yahiko's voice, but Yahiko never used such a wavering, uncertain tone. "Konan," he repeats. "There you are."

Madara lets Konan go.

She crosses the distance between herself and Nagato-in-Yahiko (who looks like Yahiko, but is Nagato – Nagato), and there is no time for them to be awkward, no need, because their arms wrap around one another's bodies, and they embrace.

She hears his heart. His skin is warming against her.

For a moment, this is all that matters.

(And everything that has come before is - )

(Everything that has come before.)

Other bodies are moving. Shadows lengthen on the walls, stir in the light, pass before Konan's eyes.

(Nagato's does not.)

"This village is yours." Madara's voice is deep and low and rumbling, confined thunder, rolling with a tremor of excitement. It lifts them, that voice. Holds them. Elevates them, even as Konan thinks she hears in the tone the fate that shall bind her for the rest of her days. "The country is yours. The world is yours. All you have to do - "

_All you have to do._

" - is pave the way for me."

* * *

1. Second half (which is done and which I'll post tomorrow) is the actual P/K half, obv. This was just the set-up. Yay for made-up, bullshit backstories. XD;

2. OC names came from **psycholullaby**, because I'm a bit crap at naming random OCs on a whim. As an amusing/dumb side-note, I think Hyori actually comes from the singer, Hyori Lee. XD; No idea about Suwayamaru.

3. With Konan saying stuff like, "You have no idea what happened to us after you left, sensei . . . " and Pein talking about, well, pain, and living in an infinite universe of pain, am I the only person who got the vibe that something like this happened? Not _this_ exact idea, obviously. XD; I don't know his canon story, yet! But this was what his godly rambling immediately made me think of, so I wrote it. I don't pretend that it's likely in any way his actual story. XD It's just an example of a manner in which their stories could be embellished, I suppose?


	2. Dies Irae

**Chapter 2: Dies Irae**

* * *

**Title:** _Diem Ex Dei _(Part 2)  
**Genre:** General, Tragedy, Romance (?)  
**Characters:** Pein (Nagato), Yahiko, Konan, Madara (Pein/Konan)  
**Rating:** PG-13 (T)  
**Warnings: **Violence/tragedy. Um, maybe very very vague sexuality.  
**Summary:** _So from her fingers sprout blades and stars and shuriken, paper bent into tiny points that will pierce, shred, make things bleed. She watches her work, creates beauty, and ignores all else for the time being. This is the day when everyone dies._

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto. Much of this is very, very strictly from my imagination.

* * *

It is not really like this. Memory simplifies and enhances. Her memories insist that she argued little, protested little, and was certain of her feelings at all times. She knows these are lies. The trauma of those days abridges her former self, until in her mind's eye she is no more real than a paper crane resting against her thin wrist, appraised under the sun.

All memories converge and crystallize at this epicenter, with she and Nagato-in-Yahiko, holding tight, and Madara, overtaking a world _(their world)_ with his voice, and this is what her mind records for posterity, but there must have been more. There must have been an entire universe of people and wars and suns and stars - magic and moonlight and animals, and laughing and crying, bleeding and suffering, healing and hope. There must have been cities and machines and nuances of emotions, but not for her. Nothing she can capture.

What she holds against her wrist is that moment, when they three are all that remain anywhere, after the apocalypse that has not come _(it will come)_. They are the world.

_(All shinobi think that about their lives; it is loneliness, its own world.)_

It must have been more complicated than that.

Memory, harnessed by limitations, is confounded by reality.

So it is not really like this. But this is a start.

* * *

The first time Konan meets Pein - _really_ meets him – is the next day.

They have left the house of healing. With a transportation jutsu supplied by Uchiha Madara, they have risen from the world of the dead and dying. They have risen above the war. They have risen above humanity.

"This is where you will keep the bodies when they are not in use," he tells them. "Except for the body of Nagato. It must be placed in a secret, safe location, and tended as it was tended before. Don't forget that if that body dies, you will die."

Konan does not like those odds. She says as much.

"Do not worry. That body is presently in a catatonic state; a coma, perhaps more correctly. It's using little energy and little chakra. As long as you see to it that its basic needs are met, it is unlikely to expire. That body - " And he waves his hand from Nagato-in-one-body to Nagato-in-the-next. " - is only the connecting point. Nothing more. This is now you."

He _heh_s, dryly. "Whoever 'you' decide you are."

Konan looks at Na- no, she corrects herself – at Yahiko's form. _Nagato_, she still thinks. _You're Nagato. Tell him that._

Of course, he does not. He says nothing.

"How did you come by these contraptions?" Konan murmurs, looking around the room. "And how did you come by this location? It's hard for me to believe that this jutsu has been used on someone else."

It's all hard – no, _impossible_ - to believe. But it is happening.

"The world is a strange and limitless place," Madara answers without answering. "I am old enough to know that. You two are mere children. Yes, of course this jutsu has been used before, as has this room. Do you think it is a coincidence that the rinnegan randomly appeared on a boy in Rain Country? It is no coincidence. It is inheritance. Nagato had the blood of the Sage of Six Paths in him. This jutsu was developed by that man, when his own power overcame the limits of his mortal body. This is what earned him his name. You are his second coming. You are like a god to this world."

It is overwhelming, but then, lately, so is everything else.

Now that she is finally able to take her own well-being into consideration again, Konan eats and bathes and begins to feel like a human _(but she is not, she remembers)_. She even lies down and allows herself the luxury of sleep – a thing she has caught precious little of during her time overseeing Nagato's recovery.

She has such fantastic sleep. Her body relaxes utterly and gives in.

Konan is lulled into vivid dreams. They are more alive than her life.

When she has awakened and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, cleaned and dressed herself and eaten again (starving; literally, she's so hungry), Konan decides to go to him.

A part of her wonders if she has been avoiding this deliberately. Has she been seeking distractions?

That can't be, because she's wanted nothing more than to have her friends returned to her – her friends, her sanity, her life, and some semblance of normalcy. _Normalcy_, she knows she may never achieve as a shinobi, certainly not like this, but it is a small price to pay for those other desires. Sanity, she thinks she has. She's getting back to it, at least. And she is alive.

As is Nagato.

_(This is what you fear: talking to him, touching him, and finding that he is gone. Getting everything you wanted while getting nothing you wanted. And you know you will be happy, for his sake, that he lives, no matter what, but what if you are now -_

_- a stranger? Obsolete? - )_

When she goes to him, she is wearing the plain white gown they gave her at the house of healing, and a flower in her hair.

Her hair; she's spent too long brushing it, tidying the strands, pulling it back and clipping it. It's silly. It's all so silly. Beauty does not matter in a place like this.

Konan finds her companion in the room allotted to him. He is staring into a full length mirror, unmoving.

She wonders what it must be like, to see your dead friend's face when you see yourself.

How would it feel, to look, and to be reminded, each time, that you could not save him? It is strange enough for Konan to view Yahiko's body in this condition. It shakes her. But for Nagato, it must be – she cannot fathom.

_There are other bodies,_ she wants to say. _Why don't you use one of those instead? Why do you always prefer this one? Why is it always this one?_

Because it hurts like a paper cut to the heart.

Konan stands in the doorway, rubbing her heel against the wood.

He does not look at her.

"He was right," he says, smoothly.

Konan responds, perhaps a bit too eagerly, glad that he is speaking to her _(glad that he is not locked away, locked in himself, because she feared - )_: "Who?"

"Jiraiya-sensei."

"Jiraiya-sensei?" That seems a thousand years ago, somehow. "Right about what?"

She watches his lips as he speaks. There is a heaviness to his movements: a _weight_.

"I asked him how I could grow up. He told me I would need to find the answer on my own."

This is when he turns to her.

"I have."

Konan takes a step forward.

"I think I have, too," she says. She has not felt like a girl for a while now.

"I have chosen my new name."

He turns again. Yahiko's body looks back at him. Nagato's eyes . . . Konan has never before taken note of how wild they are. There is a fierceness to them, a frenzy she has not seen before. It makes her skin feel cold. But he is contained. Calm.

"Pain," he begins, "is what has forced me to grow up."

Konan nods.

"Konan." She thinks she hears Nagato, briefly, in the single word. Then, he is gone. "This face reminds me of mistakes I will never make again. Yahiko wanted to go off on his own. I let him. I was weak, and uncertain. I was hesitant. I always cried. Now, I can look at myself, and remember."

Konan sees his eyes in the mirror.

There is nothing to them but chill.

"Do you remember what Yahiko said that night at the dinner table?"

"No," she confesses. "What do you mean?"

"He said that for people to understand one another, we have to make them suffer like we've suffered. If someone gets injured, for example, and a fight stops because of it. And then, he despaired, thinking it would never happen, and there would always be wars."

He lifts a hand; strains his fingertips through his messy, spiky hair.

"I don't understand," Konan admits.

"Madara told me that Hanzou's men were the ones who did this." He presses a finger to _"his"_ cheek, pushing the nail against the skin. "Hanzou rules Amegakure. His decisions have brought war to Rain Country. War. This is what has destroyed our families, left us homeless and hungry. This is what killed Yahiko. This is what took our innocence and ignorance away. Time and again, I have learned the meaning of pain.

_Nagato?_ How can this be Nagato? How can this be the boy she met, who pouted and quivered and stuttered when he spoke through his tears? His voice is measured, controlled. Hardened. Like an adult's voice. Beneath, far beneath, the sound of rage echoes from the depths; she hears it, ringing under everything he says, but it never escapes, never pierces his stoic exterior.

He looks up. "Pain has pushed me over the edge, Konan. It pushed me, and I fell, and Nagato is lying in the abyss, dead with Yahiko. Nagato is gone. Only his pain lingers. His pain. Yahiko's pain. And the pain of all those who have died to become me, and all those who have died in this miserable country."

"But you've been given a second chance," Konan answers, slumping against the frame of the door. It is almost too much, hearing her fears confirmed one by one. "I'm not an idealist. You know I'm not. But I have to believe there's some reason that you've been returned -" (to me) " - and as much I always question good fortune, can't we accept this one piece of luck? Won't that give us a little peace of mind?"

_Please_, she adds, silently. She wants peace of mind. She wants them to cope as best they can. She wants to begin a new life. Paper into origami. Her hands know the motions.

When Pein looks at her, she feels instantly like a child.

"I know what I have to do. It's all so clear now."

Konan looks down.

"All right, then."

They both know the discussion has concluded. Konan stands aside, makes way for him, and Pein pushes past her, and tells her, quietly, over his shoulder, "Wait here, Konan. I'll return."

She does not argue. Why would she argue? He's been through hell. If he needs to take his leave, she thinks, then let him go.

When he has gone, Konan sinks to the floor and sinks into herself.

She links her fingers, wiggles her thumbs. Jutsu paper blooms between them.

Though she has lost sight of this fact in her moments of terror, surprise, and pain, Konan is a kunoichi. She has been chosen to live. She did not fall. _She did not fall._ Nagato chose her. Madara chose her. Fate chose her. She must make herself useful. She must support Nagato. She must protect him _(but he is still powerful, always more powerful, but she must protect him)_, as he has protected her; she must make his decision a worthwhile one. Because she is alive, and Yahiko is not.

Because she lives. A life must have a purpose.

So from her fingers sprout blades and stars and shuriken, paper bent into tiny points that will pierce, shred, make things bleed. She watches her work, creates beauty, and ignores all else for the time being.

This is the day when everyone dies.

She is sitting quietly, tending her paper garden, when Hanzou and all his men, and all his family, servants, the children, and everyone in his regime – all who might have connections with him – are slaughtered. Konan would have never suspected.

No one can blame her. There is no way she could have known. Nagato did not kill.

Only once. Only once, he -

_(She saw it foretold it in his eyes. She knew. She stepped aside.)_

Tucked in the folds of herself, tiny and thrumming, there is the terrible desire -

_But she is a good person._

- to see them all suffer and die. Each one. Fragile as paper.

But she is a good person, and she does not know, has no idea, of what is to come next.

(She stepped aside.)

Unexpectedly, a corner cuts her finger. Konan stares down, watches the blood fall, like the blood that splattered on her face that day.

She lifts her finger, puts it into her mouth, and sucks the blood away.

* * *

When the flames grow so high that she can see them, even from the top floor, Konan leaves.

She runs through the streets, expecting to hear cries and screams, but there are none.

Windows are shuttered. Once or twice, she thinks she sees an opening, and a cautious eye peeking out at her. Then, the human presences are concealed. Amegakure is industry, metal and roads.

It rains.

She finds his central body before the ruins, sitting in a low crouch. Water drains down his cheeks. Dangling from one hand is a hitai-ate. Without looking up, he strikes the ground with it, scarring the Rain Country symbol with a long crack.

"I told you to wait," he reminds her.

"I was worried."

"It's over," he says, calmly, as if she had not commented. "They are all dead. There will be no more war here."

"You were capable of this all along, Na-?"

He looks up. To her shock, the syllable appears to have wounded him. Maybe it's only the lighting, she thinks.

"Maybe, physically. Not in other ways. But now I have grown up."

Behind him, the blaze roars. It is an inferno. An apocalypse.

"I killed them quickly. There was not as much pain as you'd think. My rain will end the fires."

_You really are a god._

"Where are the other bodies?"

"Cleaning up the remains, throwing them into the fire. It smells horrible, doesn't it? Burning flesh. I'm going to retire the other five and lock them in the chambers tonight."

"Your . . . last body. I've taken care of it, for now."

"I appreciate it," he says, quietly.

Konan walks over and takes a seat beside him, filled with a kind of awe. This. _This_ is. There is nothing that can summarize it.

"Don't get too near the fires," he cautions. "They wouldn't mix well with your jutsu."

"I know." She glances back, like she cannot quite believe what she will see. "Na—Pein. Are you sure this was right?"

"You can't ask me that."

"Why can't I?"

"Because I have to be sure. This is my burden. And if I look back, all those who have died will have died in vain, for a meaningless goal. You are not thinking large enough, Konan."

He stands, as if with great difficulty, and she realizes that the body before her is in a state of exhaustion.

"When I was hurt, I did not feel like myself. I did not feel like I was in my body. There was pain. And aside from the pain, there were dreams. Fever dreams. They were like nothing I could describe to you with our limited language. I was in a stupor. And during that stupor, I made my peace with the fact that I would emerge as someone different. I have."

He looks up, as he did before, and the rain falls fiercely. In the orange illumination, his hair and eyes are a perfect match.

"When the jutsu was performed, when I took into myself the pain and lives and knowledge of those others, I transcended humanity. Jiraiya-sensei said kindness is what makes us human. I am no longer bound by human laws."

His mind is cracking apart before her eyes. It is horrifying, but so beautiful.

"I had a revelation, and this is it. I am the one who will save this world. I am the destined child. The pain and the trials of my life have all been for this purpose. They were meant to prepare me. All throughout my pain, I dreamed of bringing a new era to this world. And then I woke up, and was given the chance to do so. This is fate. The pain of those who have died here is what has made me into an adult. A god. And now it's obvious to me. Everything is obvious to me. I will not ask what is right and wrong. I will make my own right. And that started today. These deaths are sacrifices for the greater good. Here is what has become apparent to me, what I was too much of a child to comprehend before."

He pauses.

"Even a large number of deaths is a small price to pay for the end of war."

Pein's dream is sweeping her away, and Konan guesses she must be going mad, too, because she has no reason to be sane, because Nagato is gone and Yahiko is dead and she has no family and country, no allegiances but to him, and he is right; if anyone should take the weight of the world upon their shoulders, it should be people whose spirits have been bent.

Because her human heart tells Konan that she should grieve for those who are dead, but she feels nothing. She has spent all her sympathy already. There is nothing left. Nothing but to follow him.

"I am an adult, as well," she says, and rises.

They stand side by side and watch the fires as they die in the rain.

The flames have lit the clouds in the sky.

"Red clouds," Konan says.

"Beautiful. By tomorrow, the rain will have washed away the rot in this city. We are standing on the verge of a new era. I will bring peace to this world, starting with Amegakure. More than a Kage, I will be God."

"Is that what you want? To be God?"

"It doesn't matter." Yet again, someone answers her without answering. "This is a role only I can fulfill. It is not a matter of choosing."

"Beautiful," Konan agrees.

"Konan, this body is spent. It is about to collapse. Will you lift me?"

_Always._ "You don't have to ask. You know the answer."

His face is impassive.

"It does not trouble me to ask," he says, at length, and that is that.

Rain has undone her hair; it hangs limp, wet and matted, down her back. Her thin white gown, soaked now, and transparent, clings to her breasts and thighs and belly. Konan faces the fire, letting it warm her skin; arms by her sides, face stern, she sees the future in this night, and it warms her. Yahiko was right. Only destruction can bring peace. It will be worth it.

Peace is his goal. Pain is his burden. He is her god. He is her burden.

He did not let her fall.

She will hold him up.

* * *

She does not call him Nagato again.

* * *

Amegakure enters a time of peace and prosperity. The people of the streets begin to rebuild their lives, and the leaders of the surrounding countries will not make war, because who is there to make war against? Hanzou is dead. A ghost ruler has taken his place. A "God", they say, but no one has ever seen him. They only see his messenger. His angel, with her elegant white wings.

Exactly seven times, enemy factions have attacked Amegakure. Exactly seven times, they have been killed, without mercy, down to the last man. Pein has no patience for conflict. He is a ruthless man, absolutely brutal in his Judgments; he will not hesitate to wipe a clan from the face of the earth, should it trouble him.

Pein is not tolerant of those who oppose his ideals. He teaches them, quickly and thoroughly, that this is a mistake.

They do not survive to repeat their error.

The common misconception other countries seem to have regarding Pein is that he is a cruel man _(god)_.

Konan disagrees with this assessment. He does not abuse her, physically or verbally. He does not grow angry. He does not raise his voice. His temper is kept in check, at all times. If there is a side of his spirit that delights in the pain he has named himself for, he does not show it overtly. Konan does wonder. When he speaks of his goal of teaching the childish world the meaning of true pain and forcing it into maturity, she hears wrath and questions whether this is all about saving the world, or whether the last lingering piece of Nagato's soul – and the souls of the others – cries for vengeance.

There is no definitive answer.

Konan is his angel. She rules Amegakure through him, delivering his messages, his blessings, and his judgments. By this time, Akatsuki has formed, and Pein is often busy with the organization.

He is private, excruciatingly so, and this is one facet of his persona which has remained intact since the days when he was named Nagato.

Nagato only shared his true self with Konan. Pein only shares his true self with Konan. It is the same relationship, but it has matured in ways neither of them could have foreseen.

Life is not so bad anymore. They are no longer starving. They no longer wear rags. They no longer wander the streets. They no longer cry. They have risen above – above everything. The long, torturous days of their youths seem like memories that do not belong to them.

The same is true of the happy moments they enjoyed together, years ago, and that is unfortunate. However, sacrifices must be made.

Pein has two idiosyncrasies, and one is the rain.

The other is the habit he has taken on of piercing himself.

His reasoning is something to do with the devices he keeps his bodies in, but Konan knows him, and she knows this is merely his way of reminding himself what pain feels like. He is a god. He needs these reminders, as gods need crucifixion, crowns of thorns, nails through the wrists, lives of detachment and sorrow, and other miseries.

It is strange, Konan supposes, that he craves the pain and blood whose very existences seem like fundamental affirmations of humanity.

She dismisses the thought.

He calls for her, one day, and places a bolt of metal in her palm.

Pein indicates the bridge of his nose. "Here," he says. "Push it in. Like the others."

Konan looks down at her hand, then at his face. He has not asked her to do this before. He has only ever done it himself, and she does not know what to make of this gesture, or if anything should be made of it.

The face that once belonged to Yahiko looks to Konan, waiting for her reaction. Outside of battle, this is the body Pein utilizes at all times. It has grown, this body. It is entirely the body of an adult, with none of the features of the round-faced youth she met in her first lifetime.

And those eyes. Not Yahiko's eyes. The eyes which have taken over the country. They promise to change the world.

She hesitates, but not for long. Never for long.

They stand in the rain, on the tongue of the statue of the tower that Hanzou built—grotesque as it is.

Konan holds his chin and tilts his head, and his eyes do not show response; there is nothing, only that intense watching she thinks of as _keen_ and _bright_, because his eyes are the eyes of a visionary. Her purple nail grazes his cheek, and he does not flinch.

Theirs is a relationship without a relationship. They do not talk much, compared to most people. They do not touch, as they could. But he is her god, her master, and she is his angel; she is a piece of him, like one of his bodies. Their wants are united. Their thoughts are united, until sometimes it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. They are intimate. They do not have to talk. They do not have to touch.

They stand together, sleep together, bathe together. They tend to one another's injuries (his rain and his hands clean the blood from her skin - her blood, and others'), and when he is tired, she lifts him, because he does grow tired; spent. Each body has a limit.

But he never makes the touching what it could be.

They are everything. They are not lovers.

_Because he is a god, _she thinks. _And gods have no lust. No earthly desires._

But she is an angel, and she burns for him.

Every day, she burns, never satiated.

Konan holds him, and pushes the piercing in.

(Penetrates.)

Cartilage tears. He shudders, slightly; only _slightly_, even though she has been brutal. His fingertips are on the small of her back, drumming, drumming, drumming, like the rain that drenches their skin, and her mouth is over his, both open, open, open, and she can feel the heat radiating off his skin, under the rain. If she moves lower, now, only just barely. She could. They could.

Konan wipes the blood from his face and re-ties his hitai-ate. He fixes her hair, tucks it back into place.

"Thank you," he says, like always.

"Of course," she answers, as she answers every time.

She leaves.

They are busy people. Busy changing the world. And Pein has a country to watch, besides.

They are busy people.

* * *

_She burns, worse and worse every day, and she thinks it will go away, thinks it will be cast aside, because they are busy, and the world is important, far more important than this, but the years intensify it._

_And there are days when, gladly, Konan would relinquish her divinity, let the world go, let the pain go, if he would stop being God, if he would be a man, only, and have her, because that is what she wants, really wants. She tries to deny it to herself, to say that she is a spirit, an angel, the right-hand of a visionary, and that is of far greater value, to herself and to him and to everyone else, but._

_When she folds her swans and dragons and unicorns – residing in paper castles built by her fingers – she wishes, in her private and secret castle, that in the new world (his fingers are building) – he will be a man, and she will be a woman._

_And there will be nothing remarkable about them._

_Another unicorn joins the pile at her feet, crushed beneath the heel of her boot._

_Nothing remarkable in the least._

* * *

The death of the heart occurs in stages.

Like a flower – a real one, this time – in the hand of a child; one petal plucked, then another. _"He loves me; he loves me not."_ Konan remembers it from a long ago and a far away. Her parents' faces have all but faded from her mind. There are heretical moments in which she looks in the mirror and tries to find them in her. She cannot.

Most nights, Pein comes to bed after Konan is asleep, and wakes before her. Yahiko's is the only body he brings to a bed; the others, he confines to machines. When he sleeps, he leaves one or more to watch over the city, such that he never _truly_ sleeps.

Konan's room (their room, really, but she has come to think of it as hers) affords her a good view.

They live in the tallest of the western towers.

Constantly, Pein sits on the ledge, staring out.

Konan knows, as she knows many things he does not say, that he is looking for Yahiko.

Yahiko is in the mirror. Yahiko is buried in a grave years deep. Yahiko is gone.

Once, Pein is not there.

In his stead, Konan walks to the end of the ledge.

She looks down, and remembers.

She is down there. At least, a part of her is. Down there, dead, with her friend.

Konan did not fall. She does not fall. Not then. Especially not now.

Inhaling a deep breath, she inches closer, until her toes touch the end of the rock.

Konan closes her eyes, spreads her wings, and _flies_.

Pein is waiting for her in the bed when she returns, and that is how Konan knows something is amiss. Pein never lies down before she does. He is as predictable as the weather patterns he creates, except on rare occasions, but this is a first. His back is facing her. Konan crawls in beside him, saying nothing.

This must have to do with Madara's order. Subtle though he is, expressionless as he may be, Pein's ill moods are not entirely concealed from Konan. These days, every time he has a conversation with Madara, he grows even more distant than he usually is, such that Konan cannot reach him.

Konan recalls Nagato, crying, with his hair in his face and his eyes hidden. Boy, man, or god, this is the way he's always been, isn't it? Ever since Konan met him, when they were orphans in the war - coming together because of their mutual loneliness – he has been inconsolable.

Sunrise and sunset, sitting on that statue and giving her messages to relay, this is the way he is.

Certain days, it becomes particularly bad. On those days, he must be stricken with some hidden ache, plagued with some unseen grief. Then, he recedes into himself, and will not speak, and when Konan speaks to him, in hushed murmurs (she never loses her patience), he will not answer, but only sits, like the other statues.

She walks away, leaves him to whatever he is contemplating, but inside, far inside, a part of her is furious.

Fury she is good at suppressing, like many other emotions; Konan is a detached woman, herself, but she hates that he locks himself in, locks her out, even after everything she has done for him. And then, when she thinks further, she hates that it has to be this way, that he has _always_ locked everyone out, except her, to a degree, because he is – has always been – beautiful. Everything she has ever experienced of him is beautiful. And these are the moments when Konan most wonders if she is going quietly mad _(has gone mad)_, because how could she have done so much for someone who will never fully open up to her, someone who is not even _really_ the one she thought she fell in love with, when she was only a fledgling girl?

She was a waif. She knew nothing. And he is not the one who smiled at her. He never smiles. He won't hold her, won't take her, won't kiss her; at his worst, he won't even talk to her, or look at her.

These are the times when she wonders what she is thinking. Does she love him only because she does not know how to do anything else? Does she love him, at all, or only her memories?

She must be so mad, so foolish, so pathetic, to have devoted her entire life to this man (because it _is_ the man, and not the god, to whom her allegiance truly belongs).

Then, he speaks to her again, and all her doubts dissolve. Right or wrong, this is her life. This is what they have. And it will not change.

"You're troubled," she says, once she has gotten under the covers.

He is silent for a long while. She wonders if he will respond.

"There are two left," he says, finally, "and five of us."

"Good odds, when you put it that way."

She wants to ask what's wrong, but that would be the worst course of action. If she is too direct, or if she speaks too much, he will shut down. She knows this from prior experiences.

"I still distrust the Uchiha's abilities. I'm not so sure he can defeat the eight-tails."

Pein stirs.

"That's not my concern."

Konan is taken aback by the severity of his tone. "Really?"

A pause. Then, "He has no business in this organization."

_Ah._ She sees at least a part of what is upsetting him, now. Progress.

"I agree with you about that. And he's a mere child. But by its nature, the organization has always made use of -" How to put it? "- people we would rather not associate our names with, if we could avoid it. We've tolerated them. We always do."

While it is something of an insult to Akatsuki on Madara's behalf to put Uchiha Sasuke in one of their cloaks, Konan is nevertheless stunned that Pein would react this poorly. Akatsuki's members have never been their comrades; not really, even if Pein did, once or twice, show a slightly negative response to their deaths.

The organization has always been a means to an end. As long as that end is being achieved, what should membership matter?

Pein stirs again, shifting, as if he's growing restless.

Peculiar. Unheard of.

"Think carefully, Konan," he says, and to her astonishment, his voice is thick with restrained emotion. _What_ emotion is impossible to discern, but she knows that thickness of speech. "It does not take a rinnegan to see what is happening. Think about our orders."

"To go to Konoha and hunt the Kyuubi?"

Pein rolls over, so that he is facing her.

Bright, bright eyes. Concentric circles. Moonlight in them.

He stares with no hint of self-consciousness.

Konan stares back.

Suddenly, she sees fingers in front of her face.

"Leaving tomorrow," Pein says, as if Konan does not already know that.

"Your first time away from Amegakure in years," she says, offering her implicit guess at what's vexing him.

"_My_ first time away from Amegakure."

There is no reprimand in the emphasis. Nevertheless, Konan chides herself. He is not – that person. His name belongs to six _(seven)_ and six _(seven)_ belong to him.

She is still distracted by that hand in front of her face.

"Shouldn't be a problem. You're invincible."

"So you told Madara, twice."

"Is that a problem?"

"No," he says, and again, there is no reprimand. There is never reprimand for her. With anyone, Pein's tone is never harsh. It's always calm and dry, sometimes unnervingly so, but so, Konan supposes, is her own.

Konan is not sure what to say, but she tries. "I don't understand why he emphasizes our opponent so, but if he insists on doing that, then I'll emphasize you."

Pein closes his eyes.

"He upsets you," Konan says, softly.

Watching him like this, in the slim light . . . she knows that she does not ask him how he is feeling, that they do not communicate with one another in that way. They never have. It is not his manner of self-expression, and she is not sure it is hers. But at this moment, he looks more exposed than she has ever seen, and it is frightening, and intriguing, and she thinks she might just feel peculiar enough to ask of him – to _tell him _that she would like to know what he is thinking.

"Why won't you tell me - " Her mouth goes dry at the words. " - what's on your mind, Pein?"

Slowly, his eyes open again.

"Something's wrong," she says, feeling bolder now that she has broken the dam of silence, "but you aren't saying what. Why do you never say? I know . . . I know you are someone who likes to give presence, rather than words, and I trust that by coming here, to me, you are telling me something."

_So she hopes._

"But sometimes, I wish you would speak frankly with me. All these years, all I have done for you, I have never asked you to compromise for me. Will you do it, this once?"

His lips part, barely. Konan can see him taking in a breath.

"Do you trust me?"

"I do." How could he doubt that? "I have built my life around my faith in you."

"Then I see no point in asking me such questions. I am a benevolent god."

This is territory they have never really breached before, but then, they have never been ordered to leave Amegakure before, either. Change is such a thing that once a domino falls, every last one can hit the ground.

(They're tipping, slipping, toppling. One by one, by one, by one.)

"I know you are, Pein, but I am your partner - " _In almost every way. Your lover and other half, for all intents and purposes._ " - And I think that I am not presuming too much and treading upon your _benevolence_ to suggest that I should know your feelings, from time to time."

(And down they go.)

Those fingers are still there, almost close enough to touch her cheek.

"You think I am afflicted." His voice gives no sign that he is losing his patience, if he is. "And you insist on knowing why?"

"I will not reduce myself to _insisting_, no, but I am asking."

"There is no purpose in you being afflicted."

"Is that what this is about? You don't want to worry me? Is that it?" And she _is_ almost pleading, now, in spite of herself. "But I don't mind. I want to share your pain."

The words are gentle. Konan is beginning to feel bewildered. Honestly, what does he think she has been trying for the better part of her life _to do_?

"Gods who need comfort are not worth faith. And without faith, a god is worth nothing."

Konan's eyes lower. Her lids are heavy.

"Then I guess I am the fool, who would retain her faith. Good night."

She starts to roll over, not wishing to maintain this potentially confrontational gazing between one another, but his fingertips on her cheek stay her. Out of the corner of one eye, she sees the ring on his thumb.

"I've never cared about this organization," she says (which she guesses is a pointless thing to blurt, but seeing his ring makes her think of it, and she's forgetting what she was saying already).

"I know."

His hand drops, finds hers, and she thinks he might take it, but instead, he only hooks their smallest fingers together – never taking his eyes from hers, and his bottom lip is out, as it always is, or maybe the piercings produce an illusion – but this gesture, like when they were children . . . when she and Nagato were children, and Nagato was shy.

Konan props herself higher on her elbows and inches sideways. Sheets ripple soundlessly. She is a kunoichi, and her jutsu have always been focused on levity. She could move, with just this amount of stealth, in order to get near enough to an enemy to slice them to ribbons. And she has before.

"When I think of associating with people like them - " She does not shudder until she feels his other hand on her neck. " - Some of them, so _perverse_ - "

"I do not think of it. Once again, small prices to pay for the safety of the world."

Konan still remembers the first person she murdered, thoroughly and assuredly, before her own eyes. Still remembers his face. Though she should not be thinking this now, she tells herself; what point is there, in this? "Human puppets," she murmurs.

"This world is still in its infancy. Humans are like children."

_Do you mean me, too, when you say that?_ Konan wonders, for a moment, but he must not, because she is an angel, not a human. Not a woman.

She leans down; farther, farther, until their noses are touching.

"The humans born in this era, in this time, will forever be like children, because they are crippled. All the strife has crippled them. But the humans born after my plans have come to fruition, after I have achieved my goals, will be different. It will be a new world, like nothing we've known. There will be no one like - "

" - us?"

"That which you want, I know," he says, abruptly, and his eyes come into focus again, and he is no longer dreaming of his glorious future, and Konan does not understand the subject change.

_Please._ "We have so much to do," she hears herself respond.

Finally (and in this last instant, when she makes the connection, it is so unexpectedly comfortable, like slipping on her cloak, but perhaps the comfort is that she has already let her mind reach a protective distance), Konan presses their lips together, entreating, and feels his deep, rich words vibrate over her pale, smooth skin: "I want the same."

If he will continue to resist telling her of what tortures him, then so be it. If he, in his irksome godly pride, is set upon suffering alone, and carrying the burden of the weight of the world and the weight of humanity and the weight of sins and the weight of war and the weight of his plans, then Pein works and lives as he understands, by his own rules. And so be it.

Konan cannot stop him. But this must be his catharsis. At least there is this.

And she will make him forget, for as long as she possibly can.

Hers is the mercy he lacks for all things: especially himself.

Konoha waits.

* * *

There are two kinds of interpersonal knowledge. One is the kind in which a fact is present in your mind, stored and filed, and you are certain of it, and could recite it at any moment, if asked. The other is different and opposite: it is knowledge without knowledge. It is that which can affect your actions for the entirety of your life, like the pull of gravity, yet you could never say what it is, or why. It is defined wholly by its effect on you, and it hides, lurking beneath your consciousness.

Some would call this second kind a form of faith, exactly like its more conscious counterpart. Exactly like one believes in a higher power.

Konan lies in bed and lifts Pein's hand so that she can watch the hazy morning sunlight filter through the glass of the windows and play upon the Akatsuki insignia of his ring.

She is awake. He is asleep. It is the first time.

Her long, slender fingers spread wide as she presses her palms to the mattress.

Once again, with grace, Konan slips near. Her calf pushes his.

Leg over leg and her hair is down now, falling, and her arms are almost the colour of the sheets, but softer, and she crawls, climbs, stretches.

_Unfolds._ Like origami.

She has always loved him for his loneliness.

It is this knowledge, which she has always known but never known, that surfaces now, as her hands come together and a garden of white paper flowers surrounds her.

Bodies together, and white wings. Like a prayer. This is her faith.

He wakes as she eases her lips over his.

"It's time to go," he says; words engraved in her skin.

"I know," she answers, and kisses, and feels his hand in her hair.

It's quiet. It's so quiet, quieter than she had ever thought it would be, but when have either of them ever had to talk to communicate with the other? To the ignorant – to their team-mates and to Jiraiya-sensei and when necessary, to others – he will make speeches, and use a surplus of language, but this quietness belongs to her.

And she finally understands that the absence of words has not pushed them apart. It has drawn them closer.

She loves him for his loneliness. He loves her, who has allowed him these silences.

* * *

1. There is one more part, an epilogue, which is almost finished and which I'll post as soon as I can. The story itself is mostly over, but the epilogue does serve to tie up some loose ends that other portions of the 'fic were hinting at.

2. On "Pein" vs. "Pain" - I recently learned that according to the Databook, it's supposed to be "Pain". Well, originally, I used to call him that, but then I noticed everyone _else_ referred to him as "Pein", and he's listed as such on FFN. :O So I went along with that. Anyhow, I still think Pein looks more like an actual name, even if Pain makes more actual sense. Oh, whatevs. You know who I'm talking about. XD;

3. I tried to write their dialogue somewhat like what it is in canon, but that's kind of hard because there haven't been that many scenes of them talking in canon. XP But hopefully, this seems at least vaguely IC. XDDDD


	3. epilogue: Storm's End

**Chapter 3: epilogue: Storm's End**

* * *

**Title:** _Diem Ex Dei _(epilogue)  
**Genre:** General, Tragedy, Romance (?)  
**Characters:** Pein (Nagato), Yahiko, Konan, Madara (Pein/Konan)  
**Rating:** PG-13 (T)  
**Warnings: **Violence/tragedy. Um, maybe very very vague sexuality.  
**Summary:** _The rain has ended._

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Naruto. Much of this is very, very strictly from my imagination.

* * *

It is like this:

These are Konan's memories, and this is the conclusion of her story. Their story.

Heaven ends before the world does, and she returns to Rain Country. This will be the final time.

He was burned by the Kyuubi, badly harmed, but Konan knows Pein was invincible. He would have won, had not Nagato's heart finally given out.

It was not the Kyuubi. It was that face. That face, like Yahiko's, and that attitude, just like Yahiko's, and that boy, that stupid boy - who learned from his pain how not to be lonely. Pein saw something which made him doubt himself, but the truth, Konan thinks, is that he doubted himself for most of his life. A god cannot afford doubt. Pein won all battles. He would have defeated any foe, but ultimately, it was his own uncertainty he lost to.

His own humanity.

She buries the bodies. Each one.

When it comes time to lay Yahiko's corpse to rest at long last, Konan sees nothing of her childhood friend in the shell.

She looks. She tries. But it is useless. Yahiko is a shadow in her mind: a smile, a boy's laughter, far away. That is all he is to her now. That is all he has been for years.

And Nagato.

For years, she has tended to the body he was born into, as it has lain in the darkness.

When she lifts it into her arms and takes it into the light, it is the first time she sees what was left of Nagato.

The form is so deteriorated, so badly twisted, that she is stunned it has managed to survive as long as it has.

Konan places her head against his, then prepares to finish this; with her own two hands, she shovels the ground with tools made of paper, until she has achieved the depth she wants, and, locking him away in a stone casket, she lowers him into the ground.

Nagato, sealed off from her who loved him most.

(But it was Yahiko you lived for, after a fashion. It was Yahiko you could not let go of.

All those years, I wanted you to see that I was still alive.)

There are bells chiming and children's laughter tickles her ears; adults are milling about the streets, speaking of a dark miracle – a revolution, and many are muttering, some in awe and some in fear and some in hushed joy; there are those who are expectant and hopeful and those who think nothing but ill can emerge from this. Others believe nothing out of the ordinary is transpiring at all. _God is in his heaven. All is well._

Dust in the air, and papers, kicked up by people's feet, and lights are flashing – red and green and gold – but there is no rain. Konan walks past the crowds, the children, the dogs and the dust and the lights, and the imposing skyscrapers like the skeletons of long dead monsters. All this strange city which has haunted her, called to her, owned her. She walks, and none recognize her. None call out to her. She has no wings. She wears no flower in her hair. Another face, passing by.

Konan departs from Rain Country and does not look back.

At the border, she creates a fire.

She gently slips her cloak from her shoulders and takes a moment to rub its familiar texture against her cheek. It has adopted her scent, she notes.

Konan throws it into the flames and lets the memories warm her.

* * *

_A little house. A farm. Pictures. A woman's voice, and the smell of cooking; typical. A man's hand on her shoulder, congratulating her. Noise, like thunder. Solitude. Hiding. Darkness. Arms around her knees as she crouches. Taste of apples. Creaking of the cellar. A boy, and he's alone, like her, and then another boy; muddy, rained on. Talking. Asking questions. Timid. Crying because the food is all gone._

_Jiraiya-sensei. Those happier years. Training. Amegakure; impossible structures in every direction, and a sunset on the horizon, and flames. Pein, calm and impassive after the massacre. His smell that night: iron, metal and blood. So much training. Her hands ruffling orange-red hair. Them in the bath, scrubbing one another, no traces of shame or secrecy. The sound of the piercings as they jingle slightly, sometimes; when he turns, just so – more of a tinkle, really. When he touches her back in that way, she stretches like a cat and gives a sigh._

_Killing. More of that than she'd have liked, but she is a kunoichi. Smooth glide of blades through skin and muscle. Bodies drop; it's quieter than you'd think, most of the time. But not the interrogation._

_Her first time, and she remembers: she sweats, but she can't show it, and the prisoner sweats. Tiny papercuts. Shallow. Right on the nerves. "Do you know how long it will take for you to die from this?" she hears herself say._

_Groans. Pants. Screams._

_Sobs, finally, when her patience has run out and she sets to work as fiercely as she likes, and she's shaking inside; shaking with fear at herself._

_It is not only God who can be wrathful._

_"Necessary." Pein's word when Konan returns, asking him, without emotion, if this was right. Her paper can nick from a distance. Never sullies her hands, yet she washes them anyway. In her nostrils, odor of blood and waste and perspiration -_

_-perspiration, hers, when he holds her down, and she submits absolutely. And she's shaking inside; shaking with emotion. It's quieter than you'd think, most of the time._

_(Groans. Pants. Screams._

_Sobs, finally. Hers.)_

* * *

It was always like that. He destroyed people instantly, and often in large numbers. Interrogations were her assigned duty; taking answers cut by cut.

They die as they have killed: Pein, swift and crushing; Konan, slowly, a little more every day.

* * *

Konan enters Bird Country, and it is there, of all the unexpected locations, where she encounters Uchiha Madara again.

"Konan," he greets her, arms folded; he is all in black, as ever, but now he wears that orange mask over his face, and his hair is shorter than when they first met.

They stand in the street, between the rows of buildings. There is no flower in her hair. It is undone, and blows about her face. This barren city, like every other; the world will turn her beauty to dust, and it will turn her to dust, because everything dies, and so too will she.

"I have quit the organization, Madara," she informs him, because she knows it is not by chance that their paths have crossed again.

"I wouldn't dream of stopping you from doing so."

Konan tilts her head, arms by her sides. "What do you want with me, then?"

"A moment of your time," he answers, without humour. "Is this how you have chosen to live out the remainder of your life? In this wretched country, in obscurity?"

She does not flinch. She keeps her eyes level with his. She has never cowered before him, and she never will. Even with Madara, Konan sees no need to censor her thoughts.

"You know, I've been thinking - " Her voice is lilting, feigned lightness adding to the cold contempt. " - how strange it was that Uchiha Madara should have been at just the right place, at just the right time, to help those poor orphaned children. If I didn't know better, I'd think you planned for all that befell us."

Prolonged silence, and the wind is blowing, like it blew before, on the day Nagato held her when the world crashed down. Konan looks up, and she is remembering it now; remembering all that has passed.

"If I did orchestrate the events which led to where we are now, then what does it matter? They happened, regardless. They cannot be undone."

"You wanted him to die, didn't you?" She can see, out of the corner of her eye, her reflection in the glass of a shop window. Her expression is haunting: mouth tight, skin pinched over her cheeks, eyes wide. She wraps her shawl about her shoulders; shields herself from the elements. "That's why you sent him to Konoha. For how long were you trying to get rid of him, Madara?"

She _spits_ the name. "You ruined his life, and mine. I figured out that that was what he was trying not to tell me."

"There were many things he was trying not to tell you." She actually thinks she hears him laugh. Maybe it is the wind. "And I assure you, he did not need me to ruin his life. Men like Nagato and Uchiha Itachi, this is how they live."

"Akatsuki is finished. You have lost."

Uchiha Sasuke, the one he counted on, has betrayed him. Even this far removed from the goings-on of Konoha, Konan has heard whispers.

"I have tried, but I will never understand such men," he replies, as if she has not spoken. "Men who feel that their power binds them to larger than life responsibilities. Men who sacrifice everything and live as martyrs. Why, when there is only ever one person whom they truly care for?"

Konan swallows. "I am leaving now."

"And it is always that one person. I suppose not even those who give up their senses of self and identity to follow the path of a shinobi can entirely manage to sever their bonds."

Konan looks ahead, towards the horizon. Never taking her eyes from it, she walks forward.

She will walk past him. She will not flinch.

Were she one step closer to the right, her shoulder would brush his.

Madara turns to her, and whispers, "He only ever talked about you, you know."

She does not move.

"All those things he never told you, because he wanted to protect you. But I heard. Imagine how it feels, to talk to one you hate, because you have absolutely no one else to whom you can confess your secrets, and the one you most want to speak with is the one you most want to spare."

Against her better judgment, Konan turns to face him. He reaches up, removing the mask.

"You think your Nagato was worth dedicating your life to. You think I'm trash, but to whom do all these _worthy_ men come? They hate me. They despise me. But they come to me. It is only through me that their 'sacrifices' can work. But oh, by the day, how quickly they assure themselves that they are just and right. How quickly they distance themselves from me."

"I will never understand what the world did to you that you feel such an all-consuming need to manipulate it, manipulate others, and convince yourself that you are a victim, but you will find no sympathy from me. If that is what you want, look elsewhere."

"I want no sympathy."

"You want vengeance."

"I've never liked you, Konan." He sounds bored. There is no emphasis to the statement. "You are an admirable kunoichi, but you added nothing to the team that Nagato did not already provide for me. And for such a quiet woman, you've never seemed to have a good sense of when you shouldn't speak."

His gaze is hard. The man's face has not aged, but for the heavy lines under his eyes; those eyes again, which once held Konan, but which no longer have the power to capture her.

Madara's skin is prone to catching the angles of shadows, and even with his hair sliced off, there is something feral to his appearance; animalistic, and dirty, like a layer of grime beneath the skin which no amount of bathing would rid him of.

"Why did you do it?"

Sharingans question her.

"Why did you see to it that he was . . . that Nagato was ruined?" She clarifies. "I think I deserve to know that, at the very least."

"The rinnegan," he says, "could have troubled me. Nagato was the child of prophecy. Had he grown up, whole and healthy, none could have stood before him. But as a boy, so long as he was in his right mind, he lacked the will to kill. He was not ruthless enough. In the war, that is death. If it had not been because of me, it would have been because of someone else. I saved him."

"I saved him," he continues, lost in his monologue. "I saved the both of you. It was because of me that he became a god. It was because of me that he learned how to rule and how to be ruthless enough to survive. I would have just as soon seen you dead, but he wouldn't have that, and he was insistent."

Eyes gleam in the autumn light. "He would have done quite a lot to protect you, I think, and if I were . . . as horrible as you think me to be, I could have taken advantage of this."

Konan looks away from him. "You didn't know anything about Nagato, or Pein, that I did not. He didn't tell me much. He did not have to. I don't expect a person like you to understand this. You cannot hurt me."

It is afternoon, and the air is honey gold and burnt red. Leaves of matching colours – and darker – blow by. Konan watches.

"And you cannot hurt him. Or Itachi. They were better than you. They outsmarted you. They escaped you. And I suppose that must burn you, must it not, Madara?" Her eyes narrow. "I suppose that's why you're here."

"Prodigies. There is always a burden in being a prodigy, Konan. Your Nagato. What a miserable man he made himself, because he thought it was his duty to save the world _and_ grind it to dust, both in the same instant, I suppose. He was so adamant that he must prevent future generations from experiencing the same pain as he did, but I know the truth is, he would have wished someone else to take the weight of being the God of this world, had he thought anyone else capable of doing so. Really - "

And he pauses for effect; sighs, drags the next words out slowly.

" - I think, more than anything else, he wanted to be with you, as a man and not a god. But he was too duty bound for that. He did not let relationships distract him. I wonder how it would feel, to be so close to someone, so intimate with them, to be flooded with desire for them, only for them to be forever out of your reach, and all because you feel you cannot turn aside the responsibilities that fate has given you. But I suppose there is no truer definition of a shinobi than one who abandons all that they love in the name of their path."

Konan lowers her eyes, and is silent.

"You think I ruined him? No, Konan. I think you were his downfall. Pein overtook Amegakure in a day. I wanted him to be truly unstoppable, invincible, impassive, and unfeeling. A perfect god, with only one weakness, which I would know. He would have been all these things, but for you."

He grins his hatred.

"It seems all geniuses must have some weakness. Some attachment they cannot quite rid themselves of. You, in the case of Nagato. Uchiha Sasuke, who plagued Uchiha Itachi's existence."

She keeps her eyes on the ground.

"I presume the world took away your 'attachment'."

His grin lessens, curling back and flattening; until Konan thinks she can almost perceive a grimace.

"I took him away. My little brother."

Konan feels the breath leave her body.

"I did what the others could not." He is facing the sky now, as if watching for the rain. "I severed everything which could have made me a human."

"I doubted him, at times," she admits, "if that's what you want to hear. But true faith is knowing someone will come through for you, even when the outward signs are not there. I believed in Nagato."

"History will call him a murderer. A monster. His name will be spoken in curses. He will not be revered as a visionary. Certainly no hero."

"I have little care for what history says."

Madara laughs. It is deep and vibrates through him; poisoned with all the black thoughts of a life dedicated to umbrage. A long life – too many years, too much anguish, too much anger. Konan looks at him and wonders if this is what a man becomes when he surpasses the stay of a mortal life; do the endless years shave compassion and sanity from him, leaving only rot?

Again, Madara's tone is ice. "I am surprised you still exist, Konan. You were always so co-dependent. How is it that you are alive, with no one to live for?"

It offers to tug at her lips, this smile. Though it enters the vicinity of her mouth, the expression ultimately fails her, but the fading light touches her eyes.

"Who says I have no one to live for?"

Absently, she touches her hair. A rather severe frown overtakes Madara's features.

"Really? Let me - "

His hand jerks forward.

As soon as Konan registers the action, she catches his wrist in her thin, delicate grip, but too late.

" - see. Ah, so you are."

She releases _(throws, really, as if she's trying to hurl him to the ground by shoving his arm down)_ his wrist; breath ragged, panting, eyes wide – her composure is wilting; she can feel it sliding out of her grasp like handfuls of flower petals.

"Don't touch me."

"I won't. Don't act so distrustful."

"You just did."

"I only wanted to verify a suspicion."

"You have your verification. Don't touch me again."

Konan folds in on herself, clasping her hands together at her chest and barring her abdomen with her forearms. Like she's praying. _God is in his heaven. All is right with the world._

"I don't want to change the world," she says, admitting at last what she has known for years. "I never did. That was Pein's dream. Nagato's dream. Not mine. I only ever cared about him. And now . . . "

She is not one who makes gods. She is not a god. She has no responsibility to society, nations, cities, or countries. She has only the responsibility which she takes on, and she took on less than Nagato did. She knows, now – has always known, somehow, but always disregarded – that she has power, that she had sway over him, but she never exercised it, always took the submissive role; the role of servitude, because he did not want to be swayed, did not need to be swayed.

So she stepped aside, always, and let her soul collapse.

(And this is why Pein refused to vocalize his afflictions: because faith is needed for gods, and he feared his hesitations and weaknesses would cause her to lose that faith. Her faith, which granted him the peace of mind he needed in order to accept that which he felt he had to do, and that which he did.

How he could kill, brutally, without remorse, and know it was all for the greater good, for that good (vengeance) they would see someday, in their new world, and how he could convince himself of that, and not doubt it, so long as she did not doubt, so long as she stood beside him.

How theirs was surely the most devoted -

The most devoted -

Surely the most evil relationship that ever did exist.)

The most harmonious. The most terrible. She regrets nothing.

It is all so clear now.

"Now, I will concern myself with the next generation. My part of it. If others do the same . . . perhaps this world we live in may slowly transform, at last."

"Don't count on it. I've lived longer than anyone. I know that the world never changes."

"And that is the only consolation I have regarding you, Madara," she tells him. "You will never die. Your life, miserable and wretched and devoid of anything good as it is, will go on forever. This is providence's own vengeance. Goodbye."

She walks past him, away - with her chin high and her eyes glistening and the wind blowing through her hair, around her, like a voice, a song, _ooo-shaah-shaah_, past all her memories and all cities and beyond the veil of rain.

But the rain has ended, and dry leaves crackle beneath her heels.

"Go, then," she hears him murmur; amused, voice lit, darkly, "and enjoy being nothing, for the duration of your days."

* * *

The rain has ended.

It is time, at last, for her to remember.

_He is smiling. His eyes – eyes like she has never seen before or since, will never see again – are glinting; she has pushed his black hair back, tucked the stray strands behind his ears._

_There is sunshine behind him._

Sunshine all around him. Sunshine everywhere.

A promise, from years ago: togetherness, once the storm has ended.

The storm has ended. It will never come again. She knows.

At last, at last, Nagato is free from his pain. At last, at last, he ends; a god no longer. And perhaps, she thinks - as the tears fall and she smiles and stares up at the (endless) sunshine - perhaps this is what she wanted.

Konan folds her final flower, and lets it drop.

"The moment is perfect," he says; like the wind, from lands far away, and she closes her eyes, and sees those eyes, black hair, his face and her hands upon it.

"I know," she answers.

The sky is so bright.

(Opens her arms, parts her lips, and falls into the sky.)

White butterflies.

* * *

-Fly-

* * *

_"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."_  
_**-Saint-Exupery**_

* * *

1) I know I didn't warn for character death. I believe a tragedy warning is sufficient. I think character death warnings tend to be spoilery – especially in fics such as this one, which are really only about one or two characters.

2) The ending is deliberately disorienting/ambiguous. Not sure it captured the feel I originally intended, but ah well.


End file.
